


What’s a Parker—The Figuring Out Parker Job

by crayonbreakygal



Category: Leverage
Genre: F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-12
Updated: 2016-06-12
Packaged: 2018-07-14 17:25:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7183196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crayonbreakygal/pseuds/crayonbreakygal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eliot looked at Parker.  Parker looked at Eliot.  He had no idea what Parker was.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What’s a Parker—The Figuring Out Parker Job

**Author's Note:**

> I have a difficult time writing Eliot and Parker together. But here it goes! I love them together though. While onscreen, there's always some spark that the two of them create. Enjoy!

Takes place during season four and a small part of season five.

What’s a Parker—The Figuring Out Parker Job

“He’s a prude.”

“No, he’s not.  It’s just, yeah, maybe he is.”

“You’re not.”

Eliot looked at Parker.  Parker looked at Eliot.  He had no idea what Parker was.  She never even said if she was straight or gay or whatever.  Except when she finally used Hardison during that con to steal the First David.  Then she’d shown that she liked Hardison.  That was all.  Now Hardison followed her around like a love sick puppy.

“I don’t know what I am actually.  I mean, I like guys.”

“OK.”

“I mean, that’s what you wanted to know, right?”

Eliot stood up from the dining room table and paced.

“Parker, it doesn’t matter.”

“No, I guess it doesn’t.  I see how Nate looks at Sophie and how Sophie looks at Nate.  I sometimes wish I could look at someone the same way.”

“It took them ten years and change.”

Parker propped her feet up on the table.  Eliot still paced behind her.  Laughing her weird laugh for a minute, Parker pulled her legs down and laid her head on the table.

“Hey, but I’m sure they did other things for those ten years.”

“You mean other people.  Nate was married to Maggie, remember?”

“Sophie grifted her way over most of Europe,” Parker added, raising her head.

Parker shivered a little.  Eliot came up behind her chair and put his hands onto the top of it.

“Patience of a fucking saint.  Not me.”

“Come on, Sparky. You’d be loyal if you had to be.”

Eliot thought about what she said for a moment.  If he had married Aimee, sure, he most definitely would have been loyal to her.  It just wasn’t in the cards.  Instead he fought for his country, fell in with a bad crowd, and pulled himself out of hell.

“Yeah, it’d be hard, but I would.”

Parker looked back at him, craning her neck.  Her big smile always caught him off guard.  You never knew when she’d throw one your way.  This was the real deal though, not the creepy one she reserved for marks. 

“Me too, if it ever happens to me.”

“Maybe one day.”

“Not counting on it.”

Eliot sighed.  She didn’t think she’d ever settle down with someone?

“You may change your mind, one day.”

Her neck was still craned up, looking at him.  He looked down her shirt, the hint of breast in his view.  He would not go there.  No sir, no.

“Has to be the right person.”

Moving around so that Parker would quit looking up at him like that, he leaned against the table right next to her.

“Just don’t think it’s nasty.”

Taking a drink of his beer that was sitting on the table, Parker took that opportunity to turn and smile at him again.

“Since I only did it once, I don’t have a frame of reference.”

Leave it to Parker to make that statement as he was attempting to swallow a big swig of beer.  And the fact that she just said something so intimate and personal. He couldn’t breathe until Parker thumped him on the back a few times.  After almost choking to death on beer, he wiped his mouth slowly so he could get a better read on what she’d just said.

“Parker?”

“Hey, not like there’s lots of people out there who might be interested in a master thief who might be a bit crazy.”

“They don’t know what they’re missing,” Eliot said without thinking.

Foot in mouth.  He really didn’t mean to say something like that out loud for the fact that Parker might think he was interested in her.  Was he?

“Oh.  Um.  Yeah.”

She was embarrassed, he could tell.  Parker turned her head away from him, fiddling with the beer that he had put down on the table after choking.  As she peeled the label off, he wondered if there was something he could say to her, to make her feel better.

“You’re a beautiful woman, Parker.  You should have more guys out there who would like to go out with you.”

“Ha,” Parker barked.

“I’m tellin’ the truth.  They don’t know you.”

“I’d have to be normal.”

“Normal?  What in hell is normal?  None of us are. Even Nate, who looked to be normal, is so far from normal compared to the rest of us, couldn’t pass for normal.”

“Yeah, he could.  He did, for years.”

“He chased a grifter all over Europe for ten years while he had a wife and kid at home.  He joined with four thieves to steal millions of dollars from some asshole who took us for a ride.  And sadistic?  Come on, the man gloats when he takes down a mark.”

“Sophie finds that attractive.”

Eliot almost did a spit take when Parker said this.  Of course the grifter would. 

“Then tell me what you find attractive, Parker?”

“Um, I don’t know.  I’ve never thought about it.”

Eliot sat down beside her, urging her to look at him.

“Sane.  I don’t know.  Likes art.  Money.  Likes money. Not to spend it.  Just look at it.  Likes traveling all around the world.  Rappelling.  He has to like that.  Tall buildings.”

Eliot hemmed and hawed when she said this, like he wanted to say something, but he couldn’t. 

Parker continued.  “I want him to like me for who I am.  I know I’d be hard to live with, and it’d be difficult to keep up with me and I’d talk too much and obsess about stuff and say the wrong thing and…”

Eliot couldn’t take it anymore.  When she’d get on one of these lists of things, she sometimes would take an hour to wind down.  Grabbing her on the back of the head, he pulled her head to him and kissed her.  It was impulse he’d tell himself later.  Impulse.  He didn’t plan it out, didn’t think before doing it.  He only wanted her to not go off the deep end and keep up the listing thing.

Parker’s strong fingers worked through his hair to land at the back of his head, mouth participating fully.  If his brain was thinking clearly, he’d realize that she was into this kiss, in every way.  Her tongue started to duel with his, bringing out a little squeal from her when he thrust his in.

Parker must have needed to breathe because she pulled away finally, but didn’t move any more than necessary.

“I shouldn’t,” Eliot managed to get out after slowing his breathing down.

“Bullshit,” she answered as she touched her lips to his again.

This time was slower and more calculating.  For someone who seemed to not have much practice, she certainly knew how to kiss.  Entangling her hands in his hair, she moved her body over to his chair. One leg over his and she was sitting directly on him, angling her head to get the best of him.  His hands shifted, one going up her shirt in the back, the other anchored to her hip.

He had to stop.  He had to stop this. She was his teammate.  Hardison had a crush on her.  What would he do to stop this?  Eliot didn’t want to stop, but he had to if he wanted to preserve what he had with the rest of the team.

Parker ground her hips into his, deepening the kiss as she did.  The groan that came out of his mouth was involuntary.  She let him up for air as she worked down to his neck and bit, making him shudder.

“We need, we should, Parker.  Just slow down,” he got out as his hands roamed her back and sides.

She then shifted his hand to the front, moaning as he found a hard nipple.  Her grinding sped up somewhat as he stroked her breast.  Before he could even attempt to unzip her pants, she arched her back and yelled his name.

“Did you?”

Parker didn’t stop her actions against him, but he was pretty sure that she’d already come for him without any action from him whatsoever.

“Again.”

She growled it in his ear as she bit down on the lobe, making him push her onto the table with more force than necessary.  As he was about to apologize for being so rough, she threw her shirt over her head and was working on his before he even could get the first word out.  Yanking the rest of her clothes off, she was able to lower his jeans enough to take care of business.

Before he started to push forward, he froze.

“But we don’t, we can’t.  Dammit, Parker.”  Parker held up a condom in her fingers.  “How’d you lift that?”

“Come on, Sparky, before I leave you behind again.”

They quickly fixed that issue and Eliot didn’t waste time.  Shoving inside as quickly as he could, he knew she was going to kill him for doing this, he thought.  Eliot usually had a bit of style and finesse with the ladies.  This was all about the finish line.  Parker seemed to agree since she was moving just as fast and frantically as he was.

Parker started to tighten around him only a few minutes later, arching her back off the table.  He kept up his pace until she clenched so hard around him, he couldn’t hold off any longer.  Collapsing against the thief, he tried to catch his breath so he could actually move his legs again.

“This table’s seen a lot of action,” he claimed as he moved one of his legs to see if it still had feeling in it.

Parker snorted against his shoulder.

“Maybe we should get up before Nate comes home.”

Eliot’s eyes went wide with amusement.  He righted himself and helped Parker fix everything until the room looked like it did not ten minutes before.

“You realize I’m gonna have to call you Sparky all the time from now on, right?”

“Parker,” he growled back without much venom.

 

“We did not.”

“Y’all nasty.”

“Get your mind out of the gutter, Hardison.”

Eliot walked into Nate’s condo expecting the team to be ready for the next meeting.  Only Nate and Sophie stood on one side of the table and Hardison on the other.

“Look, it’s my place.  And even if we did…”

“Don’t say it.”

“What?  So what if he fucked her over the table.”

All four turned to Parker, who had seated herself at one of the chairs.  Nate put his hand over his mouth and Sophie just stood there with her mouth open. Hardison kept pointing at her like he did when he couldn’t voice what he had to say.

“Who cares?” Eliot finished, grabbing a folder.

“But we didn’t.”

“Kind of wished we did,” Nate mumbled.

Sophie turned to him, slapping his arm in the process.  Hardison frowned at both of them.

“Seriously?”

Parker winked Eliot’s way, grabbing her own folder and flipping it open.  Sophie’s eyes narrowed, probably having seen the wink and the flip.  Instead of calling Eliot and Parker out on this, she just turned to Hardison with her con face.  Hardison was always the one to fall for her antics.

“Let’s see.  We first started with shucking our clothes right after we got in the door.”

Nate backed away a bit, if maybe to give her the stage or to make sure he didn’t get caught up in the current that was Sophie Devereaux.

“Then he carried me over his shoulder to the table.”

“Really?” Nate remarked.

“Too much?”

“I’m just not sure that’s the image you want for this.”

If Hardison could blush, he would.

“Ok, so no clothes.”

“Stop with the no clothes, folks. We have a job to do.  Let’s do it.”  Parker gestured for the rest of the group to join her.  “We can have sex fantasies later.”

“I was thinking that later…”

“Nate?”

“Yes, Parker.”

“Focus.”

Nate saluted her and sat down at the table, pointing himself toward the screens like he was ready for the info session.  Hardison gathered himself together and moved toward the computer to call up the data he needed.  Parker grinned Eliot’s way, but made no other move to indicate that there was anything else going on in her head.

“You owe me,” Sophie whispered in Eliot’s ear so that Hardison couldn’t hear.

He nodded her way, but didn’t acknowledge the grifter at all with words. Sophie pointed Nate’s way to behave himself, but he just grinned.

“Nate, are you ready or am I gonna have to start over?”

“Go ahead Hardison.”

 

“Hope you know what you’re doing, Eliot,” Sophie asked as the two met in the kitchen to grab coffee.

“Doing?  There is no doing.”

Sophie pursed her lips.  “Yeah.  Kind of like when Nate and I were in San Lorenzo.”

“And the steps, the kitchen counter, the wall in the bathroom, the…”

Sophie slapped her hand against his mouth so that he’d shut it up.

“If you say the pot calling the kettle black, I might just smack you.”

“Listen, you and Nate have been dancing around each other for a dozen or so years.”

“You’re telling me.  Celibacy is so unbecoming.”

Eliot grinned a bit at her joke.

“Living in the moment.”

“Just make sure that moment doesn’t hurt anyone.”

Eliot became serious then.  It was just a bit of fun for himself and Parker.  Now there’d be implications.  He needed to talk to Parker ASAP and make sure everything was good between them.

 

Eliot left quickly, like a man on a mission.

“Are we good?” Nate said as he came down the stairs.

“Good?  Oh, are we ready for Mr. Markham?  Certainly.”

“What have we done?” he asked as he put his arms around her from behind.

“Done?  With the mark?  Or is there something else on your mind?”

“Eliot?”

“Oh.  I have no idea.”

“I can think of a few.”

“We lead isolated lives.  I can see why where we’d turn to one another.”

Nate turned Sophie so that she faced him.

“Sophie?  Is there something you want to tell me?”

“Oh, Nate.  No way.  Well, there was that one time with Parker.”

“You’re joking.  Aren’t you?”

Sophie playfully slapped Nate on the shoulder.  “Men.  Of course I am,” she challenged him.

“It would just be awkward.  How about you and Tara?”

Sophie rolled her eyes.  “I never kiss and tell.”

Nate had picked up his glass right before that statement.  He almost spilled it all over his front.

“Word choice.”

“Your vivid imagination.”

“You and Eliot?”

Sophie made a zipping motion with her fingers.

“Did I ever mention that one time with Parker?”

“Bastard.  And liar too.”

 

Eliot found Parker on the roof rather quickly.  It was one of the places she loved to go, so it was usually one of the first places he looked.

“Hey,” she yelled as she stood on her head, body still as she could get it.

“We should talk.”

“Ok, so talk.”

“With you upright.”

“Oh.”

Parker brought herself back, placing her feet on the ground and jumping up to face Eliot.

“So, what’s up?”

“This thing. I, um, I, what do we do?”

“Do?  Is there something we do?  We had fun.”

Did Eliot want it to be more than just fun?

“Well, what I mean is, you were saying that…, oh hell, Parker, help me out here.”

“I wanted to have more experience. You gave me that.  Thanks.”

He could see by the look on her face that she was sincere.  OK, so that’s how he’d play it.

“So now I have four.”

Eliot’s eyes went wide with that.  He could only remember twice.

Parker held up two fingers.  “Twice on that last one.”

“So are you and Hardison together?  I just don’t understand.”

“Neither do I.  I can’t figure out whether we’re better as friends though.  It’s like he’s a margarita and you’re tequila straight from the bottle.  I like both, but one hits you like a freight train while the other one is for sipping.”

Eliot did not understand her analogy.  “So what do we do?”

“He needs me.  You need me.”

“Seems like you need time to think then.”

Parker placed her small hand on his cheek for a moment, then turned to leave.

That was all that was discussed about what had happened.  Parker didn’t mention what had happened between the two of them until after they arrived in Portland.  One night while they were working, Parker reached over and grabbed Eliot’s hand.

“How ya doin’ there, Sparky?”

“Tired.  But good.  You?”

“Nostalgic.  Wistful.  I miss you.”

Parker and Hardison had decided to start dating.  Eliot was happy for the two of them, but was not happy that he and Parker weren’t as close as they were before.

“I’m here.  Anytime you need someone to talk.”

“It’s not talking that you need.”

“Parker.”

“I’m just sayin’.”

Parker smirked his way, pulling him into a hug.

“We should christen the table.  Nate and Sophie haven’t yet.”

Eliot looked down at her.  “You and Hardison haven’t?”

“Y’all nasty.  You see what I mean?”

“You love him?”

“I kinda do.  Doesn’t mean I can’t be here for a friend though.  If you ever need me.”

Eliot hauled her back into a hug, placing a kiss on her cheek as he did.

“No macking on the girlfriend, Eliot.”

Eliot shoved Parker away from him when he noticed Hardison enter.

“Just as long as there is no christening of the table, then we’re good.  Now, the bench over there?”

Parker smiled each of their ways. 

“Parker sandwich.”

Eliot’s eyes bugged out of his head.  Hardison followed suit.


End file.
